


The Main Adventure

by Impsc



Series: Lost Sides in Neverland [on hiatus] [3]
Category: Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kid Sides (Sanders Sides), Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27570052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impsc/pseuds/Impsc
Summary: the main Neverland storyline, where things can grow and change
Series: Lost Sides in Neverland [on hiatus] [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997491
Kudos: 3





	1. A Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> okay I know I said weekly on Fridays but I wanted to get the start of the main story going

Virgil liked the other two well enough. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them. Remus was… exciting; he always made things interesting, and Janus always took care of them both. It was just that he liked doing things by himself, too. It was also quieter when he was alone, he thought as he darted quickly and quietly from shadow to shadow.

Tonight, he is headed for the lagoon, and for the silence and stillness and the light of the moon on the water. With him, he has his cloak that needs repairing, and a large needle, and some yarn and fabric for stitching. The fabric he usually finds and scavenges from various places is mostly black and grey, but recently he has found a very nice piece of purple that he isn’t yet sure that he wants to use. Purple is beautiful, but it doesn’t blend in as well with the shadows.

Virgil arrived at the lagoon, checking the water carefully for lingering mermaids. Satisfied that no one is hanging around to charm him into the water, he finds a nice flat rock and spreads out his materials. He wanders a bit back into the woods to find a good size stick for measuring.

Because I am sometimes a mischievous narrator, and because it is necessary for reasons that will be soon seen, tonight it is a long and tiring search, and it is several hours before Virgil can find anything he can use. He is just on the edge of giving up when he finds the most perfect measuring stick he has ever found. It is flat and has a straight edge, and markings and symbols regularly along it. It is, in fact, a ruler, but Virgil is unaware of this, all he knows is that he is definitely keeping this one.

Virgil spent several more hours measuring and designing, until his eyelids became heavy. He still couldn’t decide if he wanted to use the purple or not. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Maybe he could just take a small break…

He was asleep before his head hit the hood of the cloak.

* * *

Virgil jerked up out of a dead sleep. What was going on?! How long had it been?! He blinked and squinted. It was so bright… uh oh. He couldn’t be out in the daylight! _Anything_ could see him in the daylight! Never mind that, Janus was going to kill him! He frantically started grabbing his things and putting them into his still very not repaired cloak.

And froze.

About two feet away, equally frozen, was a boy he had never seen before. He was standing with his mouth open, and holding a sword, a real one (Remus would be so jealous), and pointing somewhat loosely at Virgil’s chest. And speaking of Remus, the strange boy had a very similar paper crown stuck to his messy brown hair. He was also wearing a bright red sash over his shirt.

The strange boy spoke. “Are you a villain?”

“A what?” Virgil had never heard that word before.

“A villain! You know, a bad guy?”

Virgil slowly continued to gather his things, as if he moved slowly enough the other boy wouldn’t see what he was doing. “What do you mean?”

The boy lowered his sword for a moment, then swung it back up again. “A bad guy! Like… like the pirates!” He took a step closer, and Virgil shrunk back. “You’re confusing me! You’ll have to come back with me. Logan can-“

“There’s more of you?” He thought it was just him and Janus and Remus. Wait a second, no! “I’m not going anywhere with you! You’re pointing a sword at me! You’re the- the villain!” He finished picking up his things and got ready to bolt, but stopped at the devastated look on the other boy’s face.

“I’m not a villain!” He touched his crown, and Virgil thought he saw tears forming in his eyes. “I’m the hero! The Prince! Patton always says so.”

“Fine, whatever!” Virgil did not need anyone to start crying. “Hey Prince.”

“What?” He sniffed and raised his sword suspiciously again.

“Look over there!” Virgil pointed behind him.

“What?” He turned.

Virgil ran for it.

“Hey! Meanie! Come back!”

Virgil kept running. He heard running behind him, but he was faster.

“Wait! Don’t leave! I’m Roman, what’s your name?”

This kid was really determined, huh? “Not telling!”

Virgil laughed to himself as he heard another faraway “Meanie!” before he disappeared into the trees.

* * *

When he finally made it back to the tree, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion and relief. He’d run into a pack of wolves on the way, and they had nearly had him. The only thing that had saved him was wondering what Remus would do. Remus would look at them through his legs. So that’s what he did, and the wolves had run away.

He slid down the small, well concealed tunnel that led to their hollow as quietly as he could, expecting the others to be asleep.

He was immediately proven wrong as he was tackled to the ground by a bright green blur.

“ _Virgil_!!” Remus shoved his face into Virgil’s cloak, getting tears and snot all over it.

“Where have you _been_ , Virgil!?” Janus was wringing his own cloak in his hands and occasionally rubbing the burned side of his face. “We _have_ to be back here by daytime, it’s not _safe_ and you _know_ that!”

Remus pushed Virgil back to look him in the eyes. “I thought you were gone forever! I thought you got eaten or caught or drowned or disremembered or you _died!_ ”

Virgil slowly patted Remus’s back as he was shaken back and forth in another hug, and he stared at Janus’s worried face. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m really fine. I just fell asleep-“ maybe he shouldn’t tell them _where_ he’d fallen asleep, he didn’t want them to worry more. “I just fell asleep a little longer than I meant to, everything’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Janus finally dropped his cape to rush over and begin to inspect Virgil all over. Remus had stopped trying to squeeze him to death and had apparently fallen asleep on top of him. “You’re okay on the outside, but-“ Janus grabbed Virgil’s face and tried to look into his eyes, “the fairies didn’t get you, did they? Or the mermaids?”

Virgil batted Janus’s hands away. “I’m _okay_.” Janus raised his eyebrows. “ _Really._ ”

“Well,” Janus drew himself up to his full height (which was not very tall, he was even shorter than the other boys, though they were lying on the ground at the moment) and said, “I think, that, maybe you should stay here tomorrow night, in the tree.”

“What! I-“ Virgil tried to get up, but Remus was still on top of him.

“Just so we can make sure the fairies didn’t do magic on you or something!” Janus made as serious of a face as he could muster. “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t see or talk to anyone?”

Hmm. Virgil didn’t understand why Janus was being so mean. It’s not like he couldn’t take care of himself. So yeah, Janus didn’t have to know everything. Maybe the news about the other kids could wait, too. “No, I just fell asleep and that’s it. And I’m still tired, so can you help me get Remus off, he’s heavy.”

Together, they moved Remus to the bed and got into it themselves. “Goodnight, Janus,” said Virgil. Janus rolled over without saying anything, and soon they both fell into an uncomfortable sleep.


	2. A Meeting Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil needs more information

“Logan I need your dicshunery!” announced Roman as he climbed up into the treehouse. It had started to rain on his way back and he was very wet and frustrated that the new villain he had found had gotten away so easily. Logan was currently trying to teach Patton some kind of game with lots of little pieces, Logan with dark blue shells and Patton with light blue ones, which Roman walked right through to get to the book corner.

“Hey, that wasn’t very nice!” said Patton, putting his fists on his hips.

“Why, exactly, do you need my dictionary, Roman?” said Logan as he gathered up the scattered pieces.

Roman marched to the dictionary, pulled it out of the stack of books, and plopped down cross legged on the floor with the book open on his lap. “Because I met a new villain today and I need better mean nicknames!” He started flipping through the first few pages. “Aha! Abacus! No, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“A new villain?” asked Logan. “You mean another pirate?” Logan narrowed his eyes. “Hang on! I thought you couldn’t read!”

Roman paused for a second, looking a bit guilty. “Okay, well, fairy tales are much easier to learn than the dictionary-“

“So you’ve just been _pretending_ to be terrible with my lessons?!”

“Balderdash!” Roman thought he’d better change the subject before Logan got any angrier. “Uh, I mean, anyway, it was another kid. But he was creepy looking! A very creepy cookie!”

“Wait, another kid?” said Patton, looking worried suddenly. “And he looked scary?”

“How do you know they’re a he?” asked Logan. “Roman didn’t say.”

“Oh, um,” said Patton, “I, uh, guessed.” He avoided Logan’s curious eyes.

“Capistrate! I’m gone have so many names to call him now.”

Logan turned back to Roman. “Disregarding your terrible grammar, if he was just another kid, what makes you think he’s a villain, other than his supposed creepiness?”

Roman paused his searching and looked up. “Well, he was creepy, and…” he scrunched up his nose, thinking. “He- he had a cape with a hood! That’s pretty evil, right? And he was by himself-“

“Was his hair gray?” asked Patton.

“No?” said Roman. “Are villains supposed to have gray hair?”

“What does gray hair have to do with anything?” asked Logan.

“Well, he’s probably fine then!” said Patton, looking relieved. “We should find him! He’s probably newly lost, and you know how scary it is alone here.”

“He didn’t seem new,” said Roman, shaking his head. “He knew where he was going, otherwise he was guessing real good about where to hide when he was running away.”

Logan wrinkled his nose at Roman’s terrible grammar again and said, “Perhaps he is just very good at hiding, and that’s why we never found him until now.”

“Maybe we can play hide and seek!” said Patton.

“Maybe we can trick him into hide and seek, and then capture him and make him our prisoner!” said Roman.

“Roman!” admonished Patton.

“We can… not do that?”

“In any case, I think we ought to keep an eye out for this other boy,” said Logan. “Patton is correct, it isn’t fun to be out there alone, and villain or no, he’s only the same as us.”

“Dastardly!”

* * *

This was a bad idea, thought Virgil. This was a _bad_ idea. He had threatened him with a sword! Like a pirate!

It had been a few days since Janus and Remus had made him stay in the tree. Janus had made Remus stay most of the time, too, to “guard” him, but Virgil thought he didn’t really want Remus to go wandering off too soon either. Janus, however, had left multiple times on his own for food. Virgil could only take so many hours alone with Remus before he lost it, especially when Remus was just as bored and had decided that describing various ways of murdering pirates and acting it out as realistically as possible on Virgil was excellent entertainment. He hoped the berry juice would wash out of his cloak before it started smelling.

So as soon as Janus had cleared him of any potential magic influence he had run out as quickly as possible for some alone time. It was close to dawn now. He should go back. Especially if he didn’t want Janus to lock him in the tree again. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the other boy. Roman? And his friends, Patton and Logan. It couldn’t hurt to just try to find out more, right? But he’d never seen him before, and he didn’t look new… And he’d only seen him in the daylight. Maybe…

* * *

Janus and Remus were asleep now. For sure. He walked over and put Janus’s hat on his own head. Definitely asleep. Janus would never let him touch his hat if he were awake. He put the hat back where it was and snuck out of the tree.

It was so _bright_. How could Roman handle being so… visible, all the time?

Virgil looked back to the entrance to the tree. Last chance to turn around. He didn’t have to go searching for what was probably trouble. He didn’t have to wander around during the day where anything could see him. He could just go back inside and go back to sleep and never worry about mysterious other boys again.

Unless they showed up at night. Unless they found Janus and Remus and him and then Virgil had to explain why he wasn’t surprised to see others. _Unless_ they were dangerous and Virgil just ignored them! Okay. No need to put the others in danger. Virgil could do this. He could find out about Roman and Logan and Patton on his own and then if they turned out to be not dangerous then he could tell Janus and Remus.

Where to look first though?

He’d seen Roman at the lagoon, he could start there.

He made his way there and found a nice bush with a good view of the beach to hide in. It felt nice to be so hidden. The sunlight really was getting annoying at this point. Sure, it felt nice, but how was anyone supposed to hide in all the light? He settled deeper into the bush, intended to watch the lagoon until sundown, if he had to. Who needed sleep? Not him, that’s for sure.

* * *

Virgil was startled awake by the sound of voices.

“I told you, the sneaky scoundrel was right here!”

“Roman, the island is huge. He could be literally anywhere at this point.”

“Maybe not, though! Maybe he came back to see his new friend, like we are!”

Virgil froze as two boys, one of them holding the sword and wearing the crown, presumably Roman, stopped a few feet from his hiding place.

“Maybe, Patton!” said Roman as the third boy ran out into the water. Roman turned to the boy standing next to him and whispered, rather loudly, “You agree with me on making him a prisoner, right Logan?” ‘Logan’ turned to Roman with a raised eyebrow. “Only until we know he’s nice!”

Logan spoke. “I really don’t think ‘making him a prisoner’” Logan put air quotes around this statement, “is the best way to introduce a newly lost boy to the island.” Logan put his hands together behind his back, and Virgil stifled a giggle. Why was he trying to act like a _grown up_ , that’s ridiculous! “But if you are going to try that, I would advise not doing it while Patton’s around.” Well. If they thought he was going to be a prisoner they were mistaken.

“Good idea, teach! Patton!” Roman called out. “I think I forgot my… um, sword!” he said, hiding the sword behind his back. “Can you go back and get it for me?”

Patton came running back from searching the water. “Um. Okay, Roman, but do you really need it? We’re just trying to make a new friend.”

Roman gasped dramatically. “I would never use it against him!” In the bush, Virgil rolled his eyes. Like he didn’t just do that a few days ago. “What if we have to rescue him from pirates or something though?”

Now it was Patton’s turns to gasp dramatically. “Oh no! I didn’t think about that! I’ll be right back Roman, you two stay here.” With that, Patton ran off.

After a few moments, Virgil followed, rustling the bushes slightly as he left them. Now he could see where _their_ hideout is!

Logan turned around quickly. “Did you hear something?”

“No, why?”

* * *

Virgil was shocked as he followed Patton back through the trees. Patton was practically skipping around, getting distracted by every little butterfly or pretty flower. I mean, the flowers were pretty, and Virgil never would have noticed them otherwise, but this kid had no caution whatsoever! He was making so much noise that Virgil barely had to worry about hiding the sound of his own footsteps. What if pirates heard him? What if wild animals did? What if fairies did? He didn’t understand how Patton could just, _not worry_ about any of this.

Their hideout wasn’t even hidden at all, other than being fairly deep in the woods. Patton scurried up the rope ladder, leaving Virgil alone on the ground. Okay. He knew where they lived now. He should just go. He stared at the rope ladder for a few moments. He could come back down any second. He stepped out of the bush. Going right now.

“Vicious Villain!” Virgil nearly leapt out of his skin and ran for it. He was looking around to try to see who had said that, and so he wasn’t looking where he was going when he smacked into the rope ladder.

“What’s going on?” Virgil looked up and saw Patton’s head stuck out of the trapdoor. “Roman! You said you didn’t have your sword!” Virgil whipped around, clutching the rope in a panic, to see Roman, _again_ , threatening him with the sword, this time with Logan standing behind him. How could he have been so careless, they must have followed him from the beach, how did he not see them?!

“Release Patton, foul fiend!” Release?- oh, he was kind of trapping him in the house.

Well, if it would get him out of this…

“Uh- yes! Back off or, um, I’ll get him!” Virgil hoped they couldn’t see how tightly he was holding onto the rope.

“Oh, no, it’s okay!” said Patton. “We don’t need to fight-“

“How dare you!” interrupted Roman. He stepped toward Virgil, raising the sword. Virgil moved to climb the ladder and Roman backed up nervously into Logan. “Let him go!”

“Just leave me alone!” Virgil retorted. “Just- back up more, and then I’ll go.” Roman did so, and Logan followed, Roman now staring daggers at Virgil, who did his best to return the favor. Logan was simply staring, which unnerved Virgil almost more.

Once they had gotten far enough away, Virgil briefly glanced up at Patton, which was a mistake, because he looked absolutely heartbroken. Well, they threatened him first! Virgil tried to harden his expression and, after making sure Roman and Logan hadn’t moved, let go of the ladder and ran into the trees.

As soon as he was sure he’d gotten far enough away, he collapsed against a tree and tried to slow his breathing down. That was definitely enough for one day. He needed to go to sleep. He needed to get back and go to sleep. Never again. Never doing that again. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looks like that's it, Virgil's never going back, that's the end


	3. Pretend Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They play a game of pretend

“I have a great idea for a game today!” said Roman, putting on his sword and crown.

“Oh, yay, what is it?!” said Patton, cleaning up their breakfast. Logan simply looked up from his book.

“Well, I’m going to be the prince, obviously, and I’m going to rescue Patton from the bad guy, that’s you, Logan.”

“Does that make me the princess?” said Patton happily. “Oh, that’s so fun! Do I get a pretty dress?”

“Well, you could pretend, because we don’t actually have a dress for you,” said Logan.

“Oh, well,” said Roman, “isn’t Patton a prince? He’s a boy, right?”

“Can’t I still be the princess though?” said Patton thoughtfully.

“But, um,” Roman fiddled with his sword, “I kind of wanted to rescue the prince though.”

“That doesn’t really happen in the book,” said Logan, flipping through the pages.

“Well, I just wanted to do it anyway, I think it would be fun like that.”

Patton considered. “Can I still pretend I’m wearing a pretty dress?”

“Yeah, why not?” Roman started off into the woods. “Come on, I’ve got the perfect spot!”

* * *

The perfect spot Roman led them to turned out to be a small cave with a shallow river flowing through it, with several large rocks sticking out of the water.

“So what kind of antagonist am I supposed to be?” asked Logan. “There’s a lot more variety in the antagonists in this book than there are with protagonists.”

“The ana-pro what now?” asked Roman. Patton was spinning around in circles, pretending to be twirling a skirt, and not listening.

Logan sighed. “Antagonist is kind of like the bad guy and protagonist is kind of like the good guy.”

Roman thought for a moment. “Well, I’m just gonna use villain and hero, they’re shorter and easier to remember.”

“That’s kinda rude ‘Princey’,” said a harsh voice from the trees.

Roman shrieked and pointed his sword in the direction of the voice, Logan yelled because Roman had yelled in his ear, and Patton fell over because he was dizzy.

“Yeesh, calm down, it’s just me.” Virgil came out of the shadows, hands up.

“Oh, perfect!” said Roman. “ _You_ can be the villain, you’ll be a better one that Logan anyway.”

Logan frowned and opened the book again and was about to say something when Patton interrupted. “Oh, yeah, come play with us!” He tried to get up and immediately fell over again, since he was still a little dizzy.

“Oh, no, wait a minute,” said Roman, lifting his sword again. “You can’t be trusted alone with Patton.”

Virgil rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond, but Patton ran over and hugged him before he could. “Oh, you would never do anything bad, you sweet and sour misunderstood shadowling!”

“Uh, what?” said Virgil, trying to get his arms out of Patton’s hug.

“You already held Patton hostage for real once, Dr. Gloom!” said Roman.

“Well,” said Logan, “I don’t know if that’s really what was going on there-“

“I want- oh, um, what's your name?" Patton asked, realizing he didn't know.

Virgil bit his lip and looked away, mumbling something.

"What did you say?" Patton asked innocently.

Virgil took a deep breath, and very quickly said, " _MynameisVirgil_!"

"Okay, then, I want Virgil to play!” said Patton, letting go but still standing next to Virgil. “Hands up who wants Virgil to play with us!” He took Virgil’s hand and put both of them into the air.

Roman crossed his arms stubbornly and Logan frowned. “Why don’t we just ask Virgil if he wants to play?”

Patton dropped their arms. “Oh, Virgil, please say you will!” Patton made the most puppy dog looking eyes he could. Virgil shifted uncomfortably and narrowed his eyes. He looked between the other three, Roman still with crossed arms and Logan looking questioningly. He looked back at Patton.

“Ugh, fine!” Patton tried to hug him again and he dodged out of the way. “But don’t expect me to do anything ridiculous.”

* * *

“How _dare_ you steal the prince from our lands, foul beast!” shouted Roman from the shore of the shallow river. Logan was next to him, holding his ‘wizard’s tome’, and Patton and Virgil were up on a rock that was slightly in the shadows of the cave. Virgil was halfheartedly holding Patton’s shoulder, and Patton had his eyes closed and was pretending to have fainted, but was still standing on his own, since Virgil refused to hold him up. “I command you to return him at once, or I shall attack you and rescue him myself!” Roman elbowed Logan in the side.

“Oh, yes, um, and I am helping, with my magic spells,” said Logan. He turned to Roman. “Okay, but what do the spells actually do though, how are we supposed to defeat him fairly if we don’t even know what-“

“You just blast him with magic, okay!” Roman raised his sword again.

“Okay but that seems a little unfair, it’s two against one-“

Roman lowered his sword again impatiently. “Well obviously Virgil has the extra strong villain magic powers, but we still prevail against him anyway because we’re the good guys!”

“Pretty sure it’s because it’s two against one and no one knows what the magic does,” grumbled Logan.

“I’m gonna drop him off this rock if you two don’t get your act together!” said Virgil.

Patton opened one eye and whispered, “You’re not really gonna do that are you?”

Virgil looked a bit annoyed, but whispered back, “No not _really_.”

“Never fear, Patton, we shall rescue you!” declared Roman. “We will never let him throw you to your certain death in the raging river!”

“Oh, no, not death in the raging river!” said Patton, dramatically falling against Virgil, who grunted and just barely stopped both of them from being knocked into the water.

“Patton, you’re supposed to be fainted!” said Roman as he and Logan made their way through the water.

“Oh, yeah, sorry!” said Patton, throwing himself onto Virgil again, this time sticking his tongue out for dramatic effect and nearly knocking them off the rock again.

“Wait,” said Logan, “if the river is raging, how are we walking through it?”

“Because of your wizard magic, duh!” Roman responded. They reached the rock and Roman began to climb it. “This is the part where you threaten us, Virgil.”

“Oh, uh,” Virgil tried to think of something. “No, wait, stop, don’t.”

“A half-hearted attack!” yelled Roman, reaching the top of the rock. “Do not worry Patton, I’ll save you!” He launched himself at Virgil, who shouted in surprise, and both of them rolled off the rock and splashed into the water. “Logan, save the prince, I have the villain on the ropes!”

“What ropes?” grumbled Logan as he helped Patton up, as he’d fallen when Virgil got knocked into the water.

“Roman, get off me!” Virgil shoved Roman and splashed him in the face. Luckily, the water wasn’t deep enough that either of them were underneath it, but that meant it had hurt a bit when they had fallen into the stream.

Roman splashed Virgil back. “Logan have you saved the prince yet? This villain is tougher than I thought, I could use some assistance!”

“No, ow!” said Virgil, shoving Roman again and picking himself up out of the water. “You already rescued him, leave me alone!” Logan and Patton came down from the rock.

“The prince has been rescued, Roman,” said Logan, and Patton waved and smiled for proof.

“We still have to defeat the villain, though!” said Roman, standing and pointing his sword at Virgil.

“Well, maybe,” said Patton as Virgil backed up against the rock, glaring at Roman and glancing at the sword, “instead of defeating him, we can just convince him to stop kidnapping princes?”

“But the villains always get defeated in the stories!” said Roman.

“Well, this is just a game, Roman,” said Logan. Roman looked unsure, and Virgil backed up again, this time slipping on a rock and falling back into the stream. “Besides, the prince was rescued, and I think he’s been defeated enough.” Logan held out his hand to help Virgil up, but Virgil just glared and pushed himself up without assistance.

“Are we done with this game now?” asked Virgil. “Great, because I hated every second of that.” Patton made a noise of protest. “I hated _almost_ every second of that,” he amended, and Patton smiled again.

“Okay, well, can we at least say that I’m the one who defeated the bad guy?” said Roman.

“Oh of course!” said Patton, hugging Roman and lifting him out of the water. “You’re my hero!” Roman turned red and Patton turned and hugged Logan as well, saying, “and you helped too!” Logan also turned a bit red and smiled a little. Then Patton turned to Virgil, who backed up a bit, so Patton settled for saying, “and we couldn’t have had such a fun game without our antagonist, good job Virgil!”

Virgil gave a quick thumbs up and said, “Okay, well, I’m going to go now.” The all got out of the stream, Virgil darting off in the opposite direction as soon as they reached the shore.

“Bye Virgil!” said Patton, waving. “Okay, who’s ready for lunch?”

“I am!” Roman ran off towards the treehouse and Logan and Patton followed.

Now the area is empty and quiet, rare, on the Neverland, except for the flowing stream, and after a few moments, Virgil creeps out of the trees.

He’d been so caught up in getting away from whatever had just happened he’d gone the wrong direction. They’d been so _close_ this time, barely a two minute walk from their underground hideout. Hopefully Janus and Remus hadn’t heard anything. For now he needed to go back, in the right direction this time, and get to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just realized i forgot to have Virgil actually introduce himself, but it's okay it's fixed now


	4. The Fairy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is a fairy

“Hey, look what I found in Trashy’s web hole!” Remus came running into the room, accompanied by a jingling noise.

“I told you, I’m not calling her Trashy,” said Virgil, rolling out of bed.

“Well, you’d better call her something soon, because otherwise Trashy’s going to stick.” Janus yawned and stretched and sat up, rubbing his face. “Remus, what did you find?”

Remus opened his hands and a sparkly blue light zoomed out and immediately began whizzing all around the room. “A fairy!”

“A _fairy_?!” Janus grabbed a pillow for a weapon and braced himself against the wall, eyes locked on the whizzing blue light.

“What is that _noise_?!” yelled Virgil over the increasingly louder sound of bells. He too grabbed a pillow and used it to cover his ears.

“That’s just how it talks!” said Remus, jumping after it and trying to catch it again.

“Why would you let that thing in here?” said Janus. “What if it does magic and hurts us or something, fairies are _dangerous_ Remus!” The blue light whizzed over and poked Janus in the eye. “Ouch!”

Remus snatched Janus’s hat from the shelf it was on and swiped it over the fairy. “Gotcha!”

They all crowded around the hat, Janus somewhat trepidatiously. Inside it was a tiny person, lying flat on its back and glowing blue. It looked like its recent zooming around the room had tired it out, and rather than looking scared or upset at being caught, it instead looked rather annoyed. It opened its eyes and stuck its tongue out at the three of them, and then stuck its middle finger of both its hands out at them, which caused Janus to cover Virgil’s eyes, which he protested. Then it started jingling again, which made Remus laugh.

“What’s so funny?” said Virgil, removing Janus’s hand from his eyes. “It’s just bells.”

“Well yeah it’s bells,” said Remus. “That’s how it talks. Can’t you understand it?” It jingled some more, and Remus snorted. “It just called you a- oh, apparently they’re a them.”

“Well tell them to leave, then,” said Janus.

The fairy sat up and crossed its arms at Janus, and there was more jingling. “They said they can understand you just fine, and if you have something to say you can say it to their face,” Remus translated.

Janus crossed his arms back and said, “Well you can just go away then.”

“I don’t see why they have to go anywhere,” said Remus. “I think they’re fun!”

The fairy fluttered out of the hat, stuck it’s tongue out at Janus, pinched Remus’s cheek affectionately, and jingled a bit more. “They said, don’t worry, I’ll be back.” They zipped over and pinched both Virgil and Janus’s cheeks, somewhat less affectionately, and flew out the entrance, to the protesting of Remus.

* * *

Let us follow them on their path through the trees.

They flit from flower to tree to bush, darting around in the dark. They certainly look tremendously busy, when in actuality they are not really doing anything except wandering and thinking.

Did you know that fairies generally come in three colors? The mauve ones are boys, the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are the ones that don’t know what they are. As a secret though, I have seen them in other colors as well, so maybe that isn’t the rule.

Oh dear, we seem to have lost them.

That’s okay, I know where they’re going to end up.

On to the treehouse.

* * *

They flit right in through the window, surprisingly quietly. They pause over Patton, who seems to have forgotten to take his glasses off to-night. The light from the fairy causes him to sniff and turn his face away and into the hammock.

Now they stop over Logan, who is not in his hammock, as he has fallen asleep over his map. The fairy rather rudely and certainly mischievously steps in some ink Logan had been using and leaves tiny footprints all over the paper.

Now they move on to Roman, who appears to be the one they were looking for, as they jingle softly with delight and land delicately on his nose as he snores.

The snores fade away and there is about two seconds of peace.

* * *

Roman blinked open his eyes at the touch on his nose to see something glowing blue in his face.

He slowly moved his hands toward the light, ready to snatch it.

He brought his hands down, but at the last second it flew away, and Roman smacked himself on the nose and immediately swung and fell out of his hammock with a crash.

“Huh?!” Logan jerked out of his slumber. “Oops.” Logan wiped a bit of ink off his face.

“Logan, catch it!” Roman yelled, slightly muffled from his position on the floor.

“Catch what? Whoa!” Logan ducked as the glowing blue blur flew past his face. He saw it slow down for a second to stick its tongue out at him and show him its ink covered feet before darting away again.

“Guys what’s going on, it’s the middle of the- oh!” Patton pressed himself into his hammock as the light flew directly over his face and hovered for a moment over his glasses.

“GOTCHA!”

“AHHH!”

Roman had swiped at the fairy, missed, landed on Patton’s stomach and caused both of them to spin out of it onto the ground. There was a lot of jingly laughter as the fairy rolled over itself in the air.

“Roman?”

“Yes, Pat?”

“Can you get off me please?”

“Oh, sorry.” Roman looked up at the fairy with his arms crossed. “Rude!” It jingled in response.

“Roman, are you… talking to it?” said Logan.

“Well, yeah, and it’s being rude!” said Roman. It jingled again. “And it just called Logan a silly- I don’t know if I should say that word, though.” More jingling. “It also said not to call it an it, it’s a they.”

“You mean you can understand them?” said Logan, trying to get a closer look. He received a sharp tug on his hair for his troubles.

“Of course I can, it’s- oops, they’re just talking.”

“All I hear is bells, is it a bell language?”

“No, it just sounds like bells when it talks.”

“That’s exactly what I just said.”

Patton had been staring between the fairy and Roman since it had flown away from his face. “Roman, can you ask them, um, why they’re here?”

“Can you-“ started Roman, before being interrupted by a bunch of protesting bells. “They said they can understand us just fine, also they said why not is why they’re here.” More bells. “Well that doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t make any sense?” said Logan.

“They said, this is going to be so funny, but I don’t see what’s funny.” Roman responded.

“Well, fairies can be sneaky like that sometimes,” said Patton, strangely nervously, thought Roman. At this point the fairy whizzed around, pinched all of them on the cheek, and flew out the window, to the protests of Roman.

* * *

As they dart off into the night, and all six boys wonder where they are going, they laugh to themselves as they think about the fun they will have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look, I am also very sad that they didn't get to fly yet, but don't worry, they will


	5. The Puppy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton, Logan, and Roman find a puppy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is basically pure fluff

“So when do you think we’ll see Virgil again?” Patton asked.

“Patton, it has been exactly one day since we saw him last. That’s really not very long,” Logan responded. It was one of the rare moments when they were all inside the tree house at once during the day. Usually at least Roman was out on some sort of adventure, but today Logan was trying to teach Roman the game with the shells, and Patton trying to figure out how to fix the holes in Roman’s other shirt.

“Well, we’ll defeat him if he comes around again,” said Roman, “just as I shall defeat you in this game, Book Germ.”

“That’s my piece, Roman.”

“Roman!” said Patton, putting his hands on his hips. “We’re not _defeating_ him, he’s not an enemy.”

“Yeah, you said that,” Roman said as Logan pointed out the pieces that were actually his. “But he still acts suspicious all the time.” Roman looked up at Patton. “For example, where is he all the time? Why is he always hiding?”

“He can also be rude sometimes,” said Logan. He jumped Roman’s last shell. “I win.” Roman made an upset noise and scattered the shells. Patton was about to admonish Logan too, but Logan spoke again before he could. “However, he could just be cautious of us. He doesn’t know us yet, after all.”

“I’m tired of this game, Logan,” Roman said, getting up and grabbing his sword. “I say we go for a walk, who’s with me.”

Logan sighed with exasperation but got up to join him. Patton wasn’t making any progress on Roman’s shirt, so he sighed as well, grabbed some bananas for snacks, and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

* * *

It was a relatively peaceful walk, thought Patton, as Logan and Roman bickered over which end of the banana you were supposed to open it on. Then he heard a noise.

“Wait, shhhh!” said Patton, waving his arms vaguely back at Logan and Roman. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what-“ Roman started and Patton shhhd him again.

They all listened intently for a second, and Logan thought that this was probably the longest they’d all been silent concurrently in quite some time, when they heard a faint whining sound from further in the trees.

“It sounds like _puppy_ ,” said Patton, staring into the woods with concern.

“It sounds like we may want to avoid it,” said Logan. “There are many kinds of wild animals out there, not to mention magical creatures that are not above tricking-“

“But Logan, what if it’s a baby? What if it’s in danger?” Patton turned to both of them with puppy eyes and Roman caved.

“Well specs, if it’s a monster we can fight it and if it’s a puppy we can rescue it, either way it’ll be fun, right?” Roman headed in the direction of the noise and Patton followed.

“Okay, well, I’m only coming so you two don’t get in trouble,” Logan complained, going after them.

“We have to be quiet, though, Patton, we don’t want it to eat us,” Roman said as Patton tripped over a branch. Patton made a noise of protest and was about to respond when Logan tripped over the same stick and knocked both of them over, and both Patton and Roman shhhd everyone again. They snuck up to a bush close to the noise, which was decently loud at this point. They looked out from behind the bush and found the source of the noise.

It was a puppy. A very, very small brown puppy, whining and spinning around in circles with its ears back and its tail down. Patton immediately threw any caution he had to the wind and ran out to hug it. However, it snapped in Patton’s direction and ran, or tried to, but it tripped over its own feet and ended up in between the roots of a nearby tree.

“Oh no! It’s okay, we’re friendly!” said Patton, walking towards the puppy again, which caused it to whine louder.

Roman approached behind Patton with his sword out. “Not helping, Roman,” said Logan, also coming up behind them.

“What?” said Roman. “You were the one who said it could be a trick!”

“Yes, I did,” Logan replied stiffly, “but look at it Roman, it’s terrified, it’s clearly not a trick or it would have done something by now.”

“It tried to bite Patton, though!”

“Because it was terrified! It probably thought Patton was the monster.”

Roman looked at the puppy. It was trembling. He put away his sword. “I guess you’re right.”

“I know.”

“I mean you were right about initially being wrong.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “I know.”

Patton, meanwhile, was attempting to approach the puppy in the most non-threatening way he could think of, which meant he was flat on his tummy with his hands out towards it. “It’s okay, come here little puppy, we won’t hurt you, it’s okay…”

He continued to say comforting things quietly so as to not scare it off again, and slowly, so slowly, after Logan and Roman had crouched down beside Patton, it took a few hesitant steps towards his hands.

It was close enough to sniff at Patton’s fingers, and he was holding perfectly still. It really was very small, barely bigger than Patton’s tiny hands. It had teeny pointed ears that they could see now that they were no longer flat against it’s head, and a curly little tail that also came up and began to wag just a bit. Patton let out a squeak of happiness as it crawled into his hands and began to lick them. It was so soft!

“Logan, do you think I can pick it up?” Patton whispered.

“Move slow,” Logan replied. He and Roman were just as captivated, all three of them staring at the puppy with wide eyes.

Patton carefully brought it to his chest, still sitting on the ground, Logan and Roman right next to him. It panicked for a second when it was lifted off the ground, little nails poking into Patton’s hands, but it relaxed once it was resting on his shirt, and enthusiastically started licking his chin, which caused Patton to giggle happily.

“It’s _so_ cute!” said Roman, reaching out a hand to pet it.

“Slowly!” warned Logan.

Roman stopped right before touching it, and it turned and started licking Roman’s fingers, and he started laughing too.

“Here, Logan, do you want to pet it too?” said Patton, holding it out a little. It seemed much more at ease now, panting up at Logan and wagging its whole body instead of just its tail with enthusiasm.

Logan stretched out his hand hesitantly. The puppy sniffed his fingertips, licked them, and shoved its head into his hand, wiggling happily. Oh. It is a baby, thought Logan.

“Do you think we can keep it?” said Patton, looking around. “It was all alone out here.”

“I wonder what happened,” said Roman. “Maybe- mmm.”

“What, Roman?” asked Logan, still captivated by the puppy.

“Well, I was gonna say maybe it’s parents are dead, and then I thought maybe I shouldn’t because that’s kind of sad, but then you asked me, so-“

“Oh no!” Patton interrupted. “If it’s parents died then we _have_ to take care of it!” He pulled it to his chest again. Logan looked briefly disappointed, then composed himself.

“ _Can_ we take care of it?” he asked. “How would it even get into the treehouse?”

“I have an idea!” said Roman. “It was actually just for getting heavy things up there, but we can put a basket on a rope to pull things up and we can put puppy in there too!”

“Oh, interesting,” said Logan. “We could make sort of a pulley system-“

“A what?”

Patton looked down at the puppy as they talked, and it looked up at him. It blinked a little and Patton squealed with happiness as it gave a big yawn and settled itself in his arms. “I’m going to name you Coco.”

* * *

Later, Patton sat at the base of the treehouse as Logan and Roman started to build their basket thing. He petted Coco in his lap, thinking that this basket would make it much easier to get food and other stuff up and down too.

He looked down at Coco, who had fallen asleep now. He (it was a boy dog, Logan had checked on the way back) was so scared before, but now he was so peaceful.

He thought about when they had first met Virgil. Everyone had been threatening things, then. Just like Coco had snapped when he’d reached out too fast. And Virgil was still a little mean sometimes.

Maybe they just had to wait. If they were just nice to him all the time then maybe he would trust them a little more, and then they could be friends. He petted Coco happily. He could do that. Roman and Logan could do that do.

Patton yawned a little, leaning against the tree as Logan and Roman continued to build. They could be a little family. That would be so nice. Patton’s eyes slid shut and he slowly went to sleep with Coco in his lap, head filled with happy thoughts and puppies and friends.


	6. Discovery, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a discovery

Logan was showing Virgil his map, and Virgil knew about so many new places, although he didn’t really know where anything was on the map. It turned out Virgil didn’t know how to read, either, but Logan could teach him later. Not right now, though, he thought as Virgil yawned once more and almost fell over, nearly spilling the ink everywhere.

It was a very sunny day, so they were all out on the beach, and Patton had been ecstatic when Virgil had showed up out of nowhere, “just to hang out” he’d said. This did happen with some regularity lately, but Patton was just as excited every time it happened.

Really it was because Virgil had gotten a bit sick of Janus and Remus, and really really it was because he’d wanted to see his new friends again, but skipping whole days of sleep, even once in a while, was really starting to get to him.

“Are you alright, Virgil?” Logan asked as he caught Virgil before he hit the ground.

“Yeah,” said Roman, who was cleaning the dirt off his sword. “You’ve barely insulted me all day, and I’ve called you all sorts of names.” This sort of thing also happened with a decent amount of regularity.

“Roman!” Patton admonished.

“What? I have!”

Patton had been experimenting with new kinds of cookies, and he was handing them out now. This time he’d squished up a bunch of berries to put in the middle of them. He brought them over to Logan and Virgil. “Here, Virgil,” said Patton. “Try eating something, that’ll help.”

“Yes, Virgil,” said Logan, taking five cookies and handing one to Virgil. These kind of cookies were Logan’s favorite, so. “It should help with your energy levels.” Also normal.

Virgil took the cookie and meant to eat it, but instead just yawned again. “I-“ Virgil started. He’d forgotten what he was going to say. Maybe he was going to insult Roman back? “Princey-“ He yawned again. Maybe not. He couldn’t really think of anything. “I’m just tired.” Maybe he should go back. He’d been hanging out with them all day. “I think I’d better go home.”

“Home where?” said Patton, crouching down in front of Virgil, a worried expression on his face. “Why don’t you just stay with us? Why do you always go out there alone?” Also a normal question for Patton to ask.

“I’m not-“ Virgil started once more, before he remembered that he couldn’t say that. “It’s fine, just leave me alone.” He stood up. “See you later.”

“Bye, Nightmare!” said Roman. Virgil hissed halfheartedly in response, and Roman frowned as he turned away and walked back into the woods. This hissing was normal but usually he’d at least try to insult him back before he left. Patton sighed and picked up the cookie basket and Logan went back to his map.

Roman stood suddenly. “See you guys at dinner, I’m going adventuring.”

“Okay, Roman.”

“See you, Roman.”

Roman marched into the forest, intending to follow Virgil, but immediately realized he had no clue where he had gone.

He tried looking for footprints or something, but there was no trace of Virgil anywhere.

Virgil had to be a villain! Otherwise how could he be so good at sneaking? He was even better at it than Roman, which was not fair!

Roman was about to turn around and go back to Patton and Logan when he heard a jingling sound from the trees.

Oh! “Fairy?” He heard some jingly laughter before getting poked in the shoulder and seeing the same blue fairy from before zoom in front of his face. “Fairy!” We really should name you at some point, Roman thought. “Did you see where Virgil went?” They nodded, and Roman caught a half a second of a confusing looking smile on their face before they darted off, and Roman followed as fast as he could.

Eventually, Roman caught sight of Virgil in the distance, messing around by the roots of a rather tall, old tree. He almost ran out and said something, but the fairy grabbed him by the hair and dragged him into some nearby bushes to hide, shushing him the whole way. Roman batted them out of his hair, then turned to look back at Virgil.

Wait, what!?

He was gone again, how could he be gone, he was just there!

The fairy quietly laughed at his confusion, then grabbed his hair again to pull him toward the roots. Roman swiped them out of his hair again, then snuck over toward the roots and peeked through.

Oh, wow! There was a whole room under the tree! This must be where Virgil slept…

Roman watched as Virgil collapsed face first into the bed, not bothering to get under what looked like a very fuzzy blanket.

Roman was thinking that the bed seemed rather big for one person, and there were a lot of lumps in that blanket, when one of them moved. He watched in surprise as he saw now two other kids roll over in the bed and curl closer to Virgil as they slept.

This had to be proof Virgil was a villain, why else would he keep a secret like this? And one of the other kids had a little bit of gray hair in the front, and hadn’t Patton said that meant bad guys?

What was Roman supposed to do now? Probably not raid the villains lair, they outnumbered him right now, but he had to tell Logan and Patton! He moved to get up, but in his haste he slipped on a root and his arm fell through.

* * *

Virgil froze, half asleep, but woken up by the noise. He slowly turned to see- was that Roman? Stuck in the roots?

Oh, well, he’d get himself out eventually.

Wait, no!

Roman couldn’t be here!

* * *

Roman’s pulled on his arm, and the fairy grabbed his shirt sleeve to try to help, and he pulled even harder when he saw Virgil wake up, see him, and start climbing towards him. He had to get away! Roman had discovered his secret lair, he couldn’t get caught now, he needed to warn Patton and Logan! He stifled a shout as he was grabbed around the waist from behind and yanked out of the tree. As soon as he was free he whipped around and grabbed for his sword.

“No, no, Roman wait, please!” Virgil had his hands up in surrender as he whispered urgently.

“No!” Roman hissed back. “I won’t let you kidnap me!” He finally grabbed his sword and drew it, and Virgil stepped back.

“I’m not trying to kidnap you!” Virgil snapped. “Just- just come away from the tree and let me explain, I don’t want them to wake up.”

Roman bit his lip, still nervous, but he supposed Virgil could have shouted if he wanted to. Virgil backed away from the roots and Roman followed, sword still held high.

Once they were a good distance away, Virgil spoke again. “You _can’t_ tell anyone,” he pleaded. Roman raised his eyebrows and his sword again and Virgil tensed. “ _Please_.”

“And why not?” Roman asked, backing a slightly panicking Virgil against a tree, poking the sword to his chest. “Why were you hiding things from us? Who are those other kids?” Virgil tried to respond but Roman kept going. “I knew you were a villain! Only a bad guy would keep such a big secret.”

Virgil tried to keep his shaking hands under control, but the sword wasn’t helping. “I’m not a villain! Stop saying that!” He clenched his hands into fists to keep them still. “They don’t know about you either!”

“You think keeping secrets from your villain friends too makes it _better_?!”

“ ** _Put the sword down!_** ” Roman blinked and stepped back, the arm holding the sword dropping in shock. Virgil took a deep breath, a bit shocked himself. He’d never shouted like that before. He hoped Janus and Remus hadn’t heard. Roman looked almost scared. Virgil decided to take advantage of that while he could. “I’m not always the bad guy, okay? I kept you guys a secret from each other because I was scared of something like this! Do you think I want you to come after us with your sword? And my friends might come after you! I just-“ Virgil didn’t see when Roman had started moving away, or when he’d started standing over him, but he backed up now, leaning back against the tree again. “I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” he mumbled, sliding down the tree and putting his face in his knees.

There was a few seconds of silence while Roman processed all of that. He hadn’t been scared, that was for sure, Virgil had just been a lot. Eventually he turned and sat against the tree next to Virgil, but not touching him.

“You going to threaten me again?” Virgil said into his knees.

“No,” Roman answered.

“Well what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

More silence.

“Did you really just want to protect us?” Roman asked.

“I thought so,” said Virgil.

“Then why do you act so mean all the time?”

“ _You’re_ mean,” Virgil said. “Sorry.” He dropped his knees. “I thought if I was scary, you’d stay away, and if you stayed away you wouldn’t find anything.” Roman started to say something but Virgil wasn’t done. “But I actually _like_ you guys. And didn’t work anyway. And now you hate me.”

“Oh.” Roman didn’t really know how to feel about that. “Um… how come you guys were sleeping now? It’s still daytime outside.”

“We sleep during the day, it’s safer.”

“Oh.” Roman thought for a second. “But you’ve been playing with us- oh.”

“I just want to go to bed,” said Virgil. “Can we talk about this later? Please?”

Roman looked at Virgil. He looked exhausted. “I don’t want to keep secrets.”

“Just for a day,” Virgil pleaded. “Can you keep it until tomorrow? Then I’ll come over to the treehouse and I promise I’ll tell you guys everything.”

Roman bit his lip. “Really promise? Pinky swear?”

“What’s a pinky swear?” asked Virgil.

“You just hook your pinky fingers, like this,” Roman hooked his pinky with Virgil’s, “And it means you never ever break the promise, or you die or something.”

Virgil sniffed. Roman thought it might have been a little laugh. “Okay. Pinky swear.”

“Okay.” Roman stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Virgil nodded, but stayed sitting.

He watched Roman head off. He stayed by the tree for a while longer before heading back down and going to sleep.


	7. Discovery, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> virgil is going to tell them what's going on, he'll get there

Roman had been unusually quiet since he’d gotten back, Patton thought. Normally he at least wanted to hint mysteriously at whatever adventure he’d had on his own, but this time, nothing, all the way back to the treehouse.

They were nearly ready to go to bed, and Logan was just opening the fairy tale book when he said, “So, Roman, did you figure out where Virgil went to or not?”

Roman went pale. “No! What? No! I didn’t- I wasn’t-“ He laughed hastily. “I wasn’t even doing that, I was… challenging the birds to a fight, obviously, what else would I be doing?”

Logan closed the book with a snap. “Okay, even I know that was a blatant falsehood.”

“A what?” asked Patton.

“A lie.”

“A lie?!” Patton turned back to Roman. “Roman, lying is _wrong_!”

“I’m not lying!” said Roman reflexively, so focused on his own guilt that he didn’t notice Patton’s, or Logan’s almost glare in Patton’s direction. “I’m not! I-“ Roman got up and yawned, rather unconvincingly. “I’m tired!” He jumped into his hammock. “I’m going to bed now, because I’m so tired.”

“You don’t even want a story?” Patton asked worriedly.

Roman whimpered, because he really did want a story, it might even calm him down a little, but then Logan would ask more questions and- no no “no!” He shoved his face into his hammock. Keeping secrets was so _hard_! “Goodnight!”

* * *

Virgil flopped into bed as far away from Janus and Remus as he could considering they were sharing it. He’d been avoiding them all day out of nervousness, and Janus seemed to be getting a little suspicious. Remus hadn’t appeared to notice anything, but you never could tell with Remus. At least some of the pressure would be off after he told Patton and Logan, after he snuck out, again, after Janus and Remus were asleep.

Virgil knew by now that it always took Remus barely any time to fall asleep, but it always took Janus a while. And today he was really taking his time. Maybe it was just because Virgil was particularly anxious to get going, but finally he heard Janus’s breathing slow down.

He’d easily memorized the least visible way from the hideout to the treehouse, he didn’t even have to think about it anymore. So as he went his thoughts turned to what the others would think of him now. Had Roman even managed to keep his mouth shut, or did they already know? Well, at least if they just kicked him out immediately it would be quick. But if Roman hadn’t told them, what was he going to say? He didn’t want anyone to be upset, but no matter what, Patton would probably cry, and then what was he supposed to do?

Uh oh. How was he already here? Virgil put his hands against the tree for support. He was going to have to shout or something, wasn’t he. So they’d let him in.

He took a deep breath. Maybe they were still asleep. It was pretty early for them.

Maybe he should just wait, right? Until they woke up?

Or, he could just run away right now. Just hide in the woods forever. Hide from Roman and them, and Remus and Janus. All alone. Forever.

Oh no.

“Hey! Hey! Let me in!” Virgil pounded on the tree until he saw the trapdoor open and Roman’s face pop out.

“What’s the password?” Before Virgil could say anything about that Logan shoved his head out of the way and dropped the rope ladder. “Logan!”

“Ignore Roman, Virgil, he always does that,” said Logan.

“Virgil’s here?” Patton’s voice came sleepily out of the trapdoor. “Hi Virgil!”

Okay, good, they were letting him in, right? This is what he wanted. All he had to do was go up and talk to them.

Virgil’s breathing picked up. Nope. Nope.

“Virgil?” Virgil heard Logan’s voice distantly. He tried to respond, but nothing came out except more panicked breathing. “Virgil are you alright?”

At some point Virgil had curled up into a ball on the ground. He heard someone coming down the ladder, and suddenly Logan was next to him, saying something else. He also could hear Roman and Patton arguing or something from the trapdoor.

Suddenly Virgil felt a hand tightly holding his, and he panicked even more for a moment before he realized that it was just Logan. Logan, who was asking something.

“Virgil, Virgil, are you all right? Can you hear me? Virgil- oh!”

Logan was cut off as Virgil threw himself into his arms, still breathing much too fast. Logan’s arms slowly wrapped around Virgil, who grabbed his shirt, and slowly, very slowly, started to relax.

“Virgil, are you okay? What happened?”

Virgil took a few more calming breaths and looked up at Logan, who looked so confused, but was still holding Virgil anyway. “I’m- I’m okay now. I’ll be okay. I have something to tell you guys.”

Logan still looked very confused and he helped Virgil stand up. “Okay… if you say so. Um. Are you coming in or would you like us to come down?”

“No, I’m coming in, I’m coming in.”

Logan gestured for Virgil to climb the ladder first, and so Logan was left for a moment making sure Virgil was steady enough to climb up, hearing Roman say, “He didn’t say the password! That means he’s a prisoner, right?”

* * *

Remus had been doing a very good job at not sleeping that night. He kept thinking about how cool it would be to ride one of those giant spiders, and imagining various scenarios in which this happened when he felt somebody get off the bed. Which was kind of weird because it was the middle of the day or something, he hadn’t been paying attention to the time. He opened his eyes the tiniest bit just in time to see Virgil sneaking up an out of the hideout.

Ooooh, when Janus heard about this he was going to be in so much trouble!

Janus was still asleep at the moment, and Remus wondered if he should wake him up right now and tell him. Then he decided it would be better as a surprise and also he really wanted to know where Virgil was going and he better follow him fast or he’d lose him.

Remus felt the most focused he ever felt as he followed Virgil through the trees, so focused that he barely noticed that he was going in a direction he’d never been before.

Eventually Virgil reached the base of a large tree, which had a super cool looking treehouse in it! How dare Virgil hide something as amazing as this from him!

Then the trapdoor opened as Virgil banged on the tree and asked someone to let him in, and several voices came out.

What? Other kids? That…

No no no. There wasn’t anyone else. Right?

Then Virgil collapsed and Remus almost ran out to help when a kid came down the rope ladder that was unfurled, and Remus watched as Virgil threw himself into their arms. Virgil knew them? Virgil didn’t usually ask to be hugged, how could-

 _Then_ Virgil climbed the ladder, leaving the other kid on the ground, and Remus heard someone else say, “He didn’t say the password! That means he’s a prisoner, right?”

No, no way! It was too late for him to save Virgil but if they were taking him prisoner then Remus was taking a prisoner too!

He thought all this as he dove across the small clearing and tackled the other kid, covering their mouth so they couldn’t yell, and rolling straight into the bushes with them.

It was kind of hard to get the kid away from the treehouse without making any noise, but Remus managed, even though they kept wiggling. Taking prisoners was harder than the pirates made it look. But they didn’t lick or bite him, which is what Remus would have done, so it was still doable.

When they got far enough away from the treehouse, Remus thought he probably didn’t need to waste his energy keeping the other kid quiet anymore, so he let go except for their wrist, and they immediately started talking.

“I am so tired of not understanding things tonight!” Logan twisted his wrist around in the other kid’s grip, but they were stronger. “What is happening, where are we going? Who are you?”

“I’m kidnapping you, we’re going home, and I’m Remus,” said Remus cheerfully.

Logan stumbled as the other kid dragged him forward. “What? Where’s home?”

“Well, at least Virgil kept our house a secret, that’s something.”

“You know Virgil? Who are you? Well, you’re Remus, but I thought…” Logan’s eyes drifted up towards Remus’s little bit of grey hair, and then to his ears. He half heartedly tugged on his wrist again.

They arrived at the hideout, and Remus practically threw Logan toward the (mostly hidden) entrance. Remus grinned and said, in far too cheerful of a tone according to Logan, “get in!”

* * *

The second Virgil made it up to the treehouse, Patton, who had watched the whole panicking debacle with intense concern, immediately sat Virgil down and started worrying over him. “Virgil are you okay, what happened, what can I do, do you want a cookie-“

“Patton, you can’t give the prisoner cookies-“

“Don’t be silly, Roman, he’s not a prisoner-“

“ _Hey!_ ” Virgil yelled, quieting the other two. “First of all, Princey, what the heck, you know why I’m here and it’s not for being a prisoner-“

“Hey-“

“What?!”

“- _And_ , I’m fine, Patton, Logan helped, I’m okay-“

“Hang on a second, Stormy-“

“ _Stormy_?!”

“Shut up, nicknames are hard on the fly, also _where is Logan_?”

They all paused, and Patton looked out the trapdoor. “Logan?” He leaned out a little further and Roman grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him from falling. “Logan, where did you go?” Patton leaned back inside, looking even more worried. “Guys, where’s Logan?” Tears started forming at the edges of his eyes.

Oh no, thought Virgil, I didn’t even say anything and he’s already crying.

“Look, I’m sure he’s fine, Patton, I’ll just go down and check,” said Roman, already climbing down the ladder.

A few minutes later he came back up, his worried expression now matching Patton and Virgil’s. “Um. Well. He’s not there.”

“Well, where is he?!” asked Patton, on the edge of tears again.

“We’d better go find him then, right?!” said Virgil, getting up and heading for the trapdoor.

Roman, who was still standing on the rope ladder, said, “No, wait, hang on, you still have things to say-“

“Can’t we just find Logan first, though?” Roman looked Virgil in the eyes. “That’s kind of important too, isn’t it?” Virgil looked so tense, still, and Roman didn’t want to keep the secret any longer, but finding Logan _was_ important…

“Ugh, fine!” Roman said, climbing down, and Patton and Virgil came after him, and the search for Logan began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look Remus is having a great time


	8. Discovery, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kronk voice *oh yeah, it's all coming together*

“Hey Janus guess what?”

Janus rolled over sleepily. He really did not want to deal with whatever Remus was about to say while everyone was supposed to be asleep. “What is it Remus?”

“I kidnapped someone!”

“You _what_?!” Janus opened his eyes and saw Remus leaning on the shoulder of another kid, who was looking around the hideout and seemed vaguely unimpressed. “Also Virgil is kidnapped by this kid’s friends, I heard them talking about taking him prisoner!”

The new kid turned to Remus at that and said, “Is that what you think happened? No, Roman always says that, Virgil was just coming to visit like he always does.”

“Remus-“ Janus started. He rubbed his face and sighed. “Remus what the fu-“

“Hey! If I’m not allowed to say the fairy’s words then you’re not either!” Remus interrupted.

“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Janus sat up more on the bed. “You,” he said, pointed at the strange kid. “Who are you, what’s going on?”

Logan was confused. “You would rather me, a stranger who is also apparently a prisoner, explain rather than your actual friend, um, Remus?”

“If Remus explains we’ll be here for a while before he gets to the actual point,” Janus said flatly. Remus looked about to protest but then thought for a moment before nodding in reluctant agreement.

“Um, okay,” said Logan. “My name is Logan, and from what I can tell I think there’s been a few misunderstandings.”

* * *

“What if we can’t find him, Roman!” Patton wailed. They’d been searching for about a half an hour.

“It’ll be fine Patton, we can do it,” said Roman, who was using his sword to poke around in the bushes.

Virgil was nervously chewing on his thumbnail, and decided this would be a good time to voice some of the worrying thoughts in his head. “Well what if we can’t though, Princey. What if he’s gone forever? What if he got lost and died-“

“DIED?!” Patton cried.

“Oh, no, uh-“ Virgil turned to Patton, who threw himself into his arms. “It’s okay, Patton, he’s probably fine, just playing with the, um, fairies or something-“

This only seemed to worry Patton more. “The _fairies_?!” He clutched Virgil’s arms almost tight enough to hurt. “We need to help him! Roman-“ Virgil looked at Roman, who seemed weirdly nervous as well. “Roman we need to find him now and get him away! You know how to get there, right?”

“Oh. Um. You really want to go ask the fairies?” said Roman.

“Wait, what?” said Virgil. “No, Pat, I was just- the fairies are dangerous-“

“Which is why we have to _find_ him, now!”

* * *

“So, in summary-“

“What’s summary?”

“It’s everything I just told you, but shorter. In summary, Virgil was apparently sneaking out to see us and he didn’t tell us about you or you about us, but I think he was about to until-“

“Until I kidnapped you!”

“Until you kidnapped me, and now they’re probably wondering where I am,” Logan finished. Janus and Remus were now sitting on the bed, listening intently while Logan stood and talked. It felt so nice to have attentive students for once.

“I just don’t get why he wouldn’t tell us!” said Remus, bouncing a little on the bed.

“Oh really,” said Janus dryly. “You couldn’t think of any possible reason he might want to hold off on introducing his weirdo friends?”

“Being weird is great, though!” said Remus. Janus made a face Remus didn’t get, and rubbed his face again.

“It doesn’t have to be a logical choice,” said Logan. “I find that Patton often makes strange decisions based on what he’s feeling at the moment, so it was probably something like that.” Logan straightened his tie. “In fact, we should probably go try to find them before they make another overly emotional decision while looking for me.”

“Good idea! I’ll get my whacking stick ready!”

“Remus, leave it here.”

* * *

Roman wasn’t exactly sure why he was nervous. The fairies were mostly nice, right? That one fairy was pretty rude, but they weren’t _bad_ or anything. The pirates were bad, the animals could be dangerous, Virgil and his friends… undecided. But the fairies were just kind of… there.

But still, Roman was nervous. He also thought Logan was probably fine, even if he was lost (plus Roman could make fun of him later, all that mapping and he still got lost) but Patton and Virgil’s worrying was starting to rub off on him, too. That’s probably all it was, just their worry affecting him.

Also, what was he supposed to do, ignore Patton while he was crying like that?

And so here they were, on their way to the fairy’s hollow, Roman in front with his sword out, and Patton clinging to Virgil close behind him.

The fairy hollow was mostly a normal looking clearing, especially if the fairies where hiding, but if you looked closer, many of the trees had little hollows in them where most of the fairies lived. Some loners did live in other places on the island but most of them lived in the hollow.

The instant they arrived, the fairies swarmed around them, Roman the most, and he started swinging his sword around, which cause the fairies to start jingling loudly and Virgil to start yelling, which made Patton start yelling. The chaos was cut short by the blue fairy that had visited them before zooming in and jingling louder than any of them, which Roman though was impressive, and the other fairies scattered back into their homes.

Roman and the fairy then had a short conversation that Patton and Virgil could only understand one side of.

“We’re looking for Logan.”

“Well where is he then?”

“Patton said don’t use that word.”

Virgil interrupted with “Roman, I didn’t know you could understand them.”

Roman turned back to Patton and Virgil as the fairy settled in his hair, looking at Virgil curiously. “Yeah, Patton and Logan can’t understand them either, it’s weird.”

“Well, it’s just that-” Virgil bit his lip and mumbled the rest of his sentence.

“What was that, kiddo?” Patton asked, finally coming out from behind Virgil now that the fairies were gone.

Virgil still avoided eye contact but spoke a little louder. “… Remus can understand them, too.”

“Who’s Remus?” asked Patton, while Roman crossed his arms just as the fairy did the same.

Virgil took a breath, then hesitated again. “Maybe we should just wait until we find Logan, huh? I don’t want to say it twice-“

“Oh come on!” Roman complained. “This is like the third time you’ve done that, just spill the beans already!”

“No beans around,” said Patton quietly as Virgil fiddled with his cape. “Well Logan wasn’t here to say it, so,” said Patton when Roman gave him a look.

“Okay, well-“ Virgil took several quick breaths and suddenly it was all spilling out, just like the figurative beans. Everything about Janus and Remus and sleeping during the day and living underground.

Once he was finished, Patton immediately said, “Well we should go check with them, maybe they’ve seen Logan!”

“You- you’re not- mad?” said Virgil.

“Of course not!” Patton replied. “Secrets aren’t great, but, um,” Patton paused for a second, trying to find the right words, “it’s fine, they’re just new friends, right?”

“Roman was kind of mad,” said Virgil, looking down again.

“Roman!” Patton admonished.

“Hey! Secrets are bad!”

“But you knew before now and you didn’t tell me!” said Patton, looking a little hurt.

“Only since yesterday!” Roman shot back. “And I only did because Virgil said not to!”

“Is that why you didn’t want a story yesterday?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, kinda.” Roman crossed his arms again and turned to Virgil. “So the point is you owe me a story.”

“Uh, okay.”

* * *

“I mean the note clearly says they all died while they were out looking for you.” Janus was holding up the small piece of paper that they’d found in the empty treehouse.

“Really?” said Remus, once again looking far to excited for Logan’s taste.

“Janus, I thought you said you could read?” said Logan, taking the note out of his hands.

“I can!” said Janus indignantly. “It’s just- that the writing is bad.”

“Actually, it’s surprisingly clear, Patton’s writing has improved significantly,” said Logan. “The grammar could be better, though, it just says ‘looking for u L’ and then he signed it with a heart. I’m not sure why, someone going missing is a relatively serious situation.”

“Well that’s annoying,” said Remus who’d started picking up and inspecting anything that wasn’t tied down, including poor puppy Coco, who had been sniffing Remus suspiciously. Janus moved to stop him as he said, “Now what do we do?”

“The logical thing,” said Logan, sitting down and opening Alice and Wonderland. “We wait for them to come back.”

* * *

Logan hadn’t been at the hideout, and neither had Janus or Remus, which meant Virgil was now panicking. Roman had wanted to investigate the “villain’s lair” more, but Patton had thought it would be a better idea to check the treehouse one more time, and also the walking was slightly distracting Virgil from his panicking.

When they reached the treehouse, audible voices were coming from the open trapdoor, and the rope ladder was down. Patton moved to run up it immediately, but Roman threw an arm in front of him, saying, “wait! It could be anyone in there!”

“No, no!” said Patton, pushing his way around Roman. “I can hear Logan!”

“And I can hear Janus and Remus!” said Virgil with relief. Both he and Patton scrambled towards the ladder, and Roman followed begrudgingly. The fairy, who had stayed in his hair the whole way, flew up through the trapdoor, beating all of them.

“Nys!” came Remus’s voice, just before everyone else came up the ladder.

“Who’s Nys?” said Roman as he scrambled over Patton, who for some reason had backed himself into the wall right by the door. Virgil had run over to Logan, who was sitting in between a messy kid with a little bit of grey hair and another kid with a burn on his face, with Alice in Wonderland open in his lap. For a second Roman thought Virgil was about to hug Logan, but he stopped short and instead awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

The messy kid’s head popped out from behind Virgil and said, “I’m Remus, that’s Janus, and Nys is the fairy. Who are you jokers?”

“How do you know their name, villain?” said Roman defensively. “I’m Roman and this is Patton, and that’s Logan, and I guess you know Virgil already.”

“Oh yeah, we know Logan!” said Remus. “He’s our hostage until you give Virgil back, which you did I guess so I guess he’s not our hostage anymore.” Roman put his sword away after he’d taken it out at the hostage thing. “Logan taught me that word, it means we kidnapped him!”

Roman had his sword out again, but Logan made an exasperated sound and said, “That’s not what it means-“

“Kidnapped?” Patton squeaked from the corner.

“No, well, sort of,” said Logan. “He did originally but not anymore-“

“Yeah I did!”

“-and Patton, are you alright? You look worried.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine!” said Patton, in a rather high-pitched voice. He sat up, looking anywhere but Remus. “So these are your friends, Virgil?” Virgil nodded, sitting next to Remus. “Are you s-sure they’re, um, safe?”

Janus’s eyes narrowed. “Safe?” he said. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Yes, what do you mean, Patton?” said Logan, closing the book.

“I-I, I just-“ Patton looked between Virgil, Janus, and Remus nervously. “They’re not… dangerous? He said he kidnapped you!” Patton pointed in Remus's direction.

“ _Dangerous_?” said Janus, inching closer to Remus and narrowing his eyes further.

“What do you mean, Patton?” asked Logan again. “You didn’t think Virgil was dangerous, did you? They are just other lost kids.”

“What’s going on?” asked Remus. “Everyone’s being weird all the sudden.”

“What _is_ going on, Patton?” asked Roman. “Are they villains or not?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call us that,” said Janus, grabbing Remus’s arm and pulling them both up to standing.

“Being a villain is fun, though!” Remus protested. “They have the best laughs!”

Nys had settled themselves back into Roman’s hair, watching with interest. Patton backed up slightly as Janus moved toward him, but it was only to step by Virgil. “Logan, this has been such a lovely time, but I think we’re going now.” He held his hand out. “Come on, Virgil.”

Virgil hesitated.

“Come _on_ , Virgil.”

“Will you let me hang out with them again if I do?” said Virgil quietly.

Janus’s eyes flicked towards Patton, who was once again flattened against the wall. “You need your sleep,” said Janus.

“They sleep at night and they’re okay.”

“Are you coming with us or not?” said Janus.

“Wait, Virgil isn’t coming?” asked Remus. Virgil looked away.

“Are you coming with us or not?” Janus repeated.

“I don’t think so.” It was almost a whisper.

“Fine. _Fine_ ,” said Janus, dragging Remus toward the trapdoor. “I don’t care what you do.” And he left, pulling Remus with him, and they heard his protests the whole way, only cut off by Patton closing the trapdoor.

“Good riddance!” said Roman. Patton picked up Coco and put him in his lap, silently petting him.

“Patton, what was that?” said Logan.

“Oh, nothing,” said Patton. “Sometimes I just get to being a little bit silly, that’s all.”

“That wasn’t silly,” said Virgil. “I don’t know what that was.”

“We kicked out the villains!” said Roman, raising his sword triumphantly. “Right? That’s what happened?”

“They’re still my friends, Roman,” said Virgil. Roman lowered his sword, looking confused. Nys was falling over laughing in his hair.

“It-“ Patton started. “I just- I don’t know. I don’t know.” He pet Coco some more. “Can- can we just… go to bed? Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow, right?” They’d been searching for a while, and it was getting dark out, but it was still a bit early.

“Patton-“ Logan started.

“I’m tired,” Virgil interrupted.

“Oh, good!” said Patton, putting a smile on his face. “I made a hammock for you a while ago, just in case.”

“Okay,” said Logan, sighing and putting his book away. “But we _will_ talk about this tomorrow.”

Patton clutched the hammock he was putting up a little tighter, hesitated, and then nodded. “Okay. Okay. Tomorrow.”

“Can you, um, pinky swear?” said Virgil.

Patton hesitated again, then held out his pinky finger and hooked it with Virgil’s. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it did not come together

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think!


End file.
